


The Hidden Heart

by Yahtzee



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Ableism, Hostage Situation, Illustrated, M/M, Reunions, Telepathic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:23:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1967, when a scientific conference on genetics and mutation turns into a dangerous hostage situation -- led by a team of rogue mutants -- Erik realizes it's up to him to save the day. And the hostages. Most particularly the hostage named Charles Xavier.</p><p>(Pastiche with "Die Hard.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Normally, when I write Charles post-paralysis, I write him as very confident and grounded. In this story, it's taking him a lot longer to adjust.
> 
> **
> 
> With fanart by the awesome historeide!

 

 **1967**

Most first-time visitors to the Nakatomi Hotel stopped in the lobby to stare upward in awe. The vaulted ceiling rose ten flights and was hung with shimmering mobiles in bronze and silver – sixty feet long, at least. The sea-softened light from the coast streamed through narrow windows, creating shafts of illumination that seemed to bear the room aloft. Everything about the Nakatomi spoke of privilege and pleasure. Nobody could be blamed for taking a moment to exalt in the fact that they were here – for a moment, a part of the splendor.

Erik Lehnsherr paused just long enough to read the events board:

 _Stanford Conference on Genetics and Mutation – tenth floor ballroom_

He did glance at the mobiles as his elevator whisked him skyward, not to admire but to appraise. The bronze and silver were plated thinly over cheap alloys. The aesthetic effect was lost on him; Erik admired purity over appearance, in metal as in most things.

Once again – far too late – he asked himself if this were a good idea. The past five years had been spent painstakingly building the Brotherhood; they still numbered only a handful, because only the best could remain. By coming here, he risked not only his own exposure, but also theirs.

 _Coward,_ he called himself. The clenching in his gut had nothing to do with worry for his followers, and he knew it. _You’re scared because you know – this is going to hurt._

Let it hurt, then. Erik needed to be here, and this was no time to start flinching from pain.

When he reached the tenth floor and walked to the conference table, it was a solid hour after the keynote speech had begun. Nobody lingered there but one bored-looking girl in a maroon hotel uniform jacket and a half-dozen unclaimed name tags. Erik pretended to look for his, then grabbed one at random as the girl scurried to collect a folder and materials for him.

“My flight was delayed,” he said. “I suppose the keynote speech is over.”

“They got a late start, actually. You’ll still catch the end.”

Of course, he’d wanted to miss this. Had planned on it. Coming to this conference risked a kind of exposure that Erik had dreaded for five years now. But he would attract attention if he lingered here.

And this moment – it was inevitable. Better to get it over with.

So he quietly opened the rear door of the ballroom and stepped inside. Nearly two hundred scientists were murmuring among themselves; one person stood, as if he had just asked the main speaker a question.

The main speaker sat on the dais, in his wheelchair.

“Your question presupposes that human mutation would invariably be harmful.” Charles leaned back so easily that he might be lounging in a leather recliner. He looked more than five years older; his hair, once so unruly, had thinned, his hairline now receding. Erik tried to take a kind of mean-spirited comfort in that, but could not. Charles’ voice was the same. “I do not agree.”

“As we all know,” said the scientist standing in the front. Erik took the first seat in the back row as the man kept speaking: “Your paper suggests mutations right out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Professor Xavier. Breathing underwater! Blue fur! Reading thoughts like a gypsy fortuneteller! Controlling the weather! These so-called ‘possibilities’ sound like hallucinations. I have to confess, for a moment I wondered whether the Nakatomi Hotel had been moved across town to Haight-Ashbury.”

Chuckles rippled throughout the room. This was how hatred so often began: as mockery.

Yet, as ever, Charles remained undaunted. “Mutation has provided the means for many species to breathe underwater, Dr. Collingwood. It has also created fur in many colors. The ability to ‘see’ using sonar waves instead of light. Skin that can change pattern and hue to match any surroundings. Are the talents I’ve described so much more fantastical than those nature has already provided?”

“You’re mistaking imagination for science,” Collingwood insisted.

“I always rather thought science required imagination. Both ask us to stretch our minds to encompass what we have never really understood before.”

Another scientist across the room chimed in: “Cut to the chase, Professor Xavier. Your wild theories are entertaining to hear, but ultimately, science is about facts. Have you ever encountered a real human being with a mutation anything like what you’ve described here? Or are your hypotheticals entirely without evidence?”

The world was not ready for them, and never would be. Erik wondered what polite lie Charles would tell.

Charles said, “I can verify the identity of the telepath – or, as you would have it, the gypsy fortuneteller. That would be me.”

Silence. Erik realized his jaw had dropped.

He had done it. Charles had declared himself a mutant, publicly and irrevocably.

It was surely an act of social and professional suicide. Literal, perhaps: Did he honestly think they might not destroy him for this? Everyone had begun to murmur and shift with the unease that presaged anger; Erik’s muscles tensed, preparing for action.

Collingwood finally managed to speak. “Are you going to try some carnival sideshow tricks now? Tell me I know somebody whose name starts with the letter L?”

“You do, of course. Everyone does. But in your case, Dr. Collingwood, your mind goes first to your oldest daughter, Lorraine. You’re concerned that she’s fallen in with a radical crowd at Yale.” Charles smiled, the reassuring expression at odds with every word he spoke. “Since standing to address me, you’ve also thought of writing to my teachers at Oxford to censure them for encouraging my beliefs, wondered whether Dr. Van Hopper would want to collaborate on your next paper and felt that your left shoe is too tight. “

Everyone in the room except Erik stared at Dr. Collingwood, looking for the confirmation they must have seen in his face.

Erik stared at Charles. No one who didn’t know Charles Xavier very well could have seen the fear underlying the bravado.

Dr. Collingwood broke the silence. “Are you telling us that you’re some kind of freak?”

Unexpectedly, Charles smiled. “I don’t find ‘freak’ very scientific. Then again, ‘marvel’ isn’t scientific either, and that’s the word I personally prefer.”

How could he be so calm? Even Erik, unburdened by telepathy, could feel the hostility and confusion mounting in the room. For Charles, it had to be overwhelming. The low roll of murmuring had an ominous cast, and yet Charles remained steady.

Across the ballroom, the other scientist who had challenged him said, “You’re telling us these other human mutations are real as well? Are you going to identify these … individuals? So their mutations are a matter of public record?”

“I believe that information should not be a matter of public record,” Charles said smoothly. “They are purely private concerns. I have come forward only to prove the veracity of my theories, and perhaps to show that mutants are not so different from everyone else.”

“How is reading minds not so different from anyone else?” called a third voice, clearly angry. “You could be rifling through our thoughts even now!”

This could turn ugly, Erik realized. Almost without deciding to, he rose to his feet. “Professor Xavier?”

Charles turned his head, and they looked each other in the face for the first time since their parting on the beach.

The shock of it was almost physical. Erik sucked in a breath. For Charles’ part, he hesitated – so very slightly – before saying, “I see we have another question from the floor.”

What to ask? It hardly mattered. What he had to do was change the tenor of the conversation for Charles’ sake.

Why was he exposing himself only for Charles’ sake?

Erik didn’t want to ask himself that. He plunged into the first question that came to mind, one that had often tugged at him when he reflected on Charles’ choices. “Your power allows you to know a great deal, including that we would wish for you not to know. And yet you have pursued the sciences, where your talents have no role in discovery. Why?”

You had to wonder. As a lawyer, Charles could have seen the other side’s case and invariably emerged triumphant. As an actor, he could have convinced any audience of anything he wanted them to believe, wrapped them in any emotion he wanted them to feel. He would have been renowned as a psychologist, or a brilliant negotiator in any sort of business career. He might even have made a small if seedy fortune reading palms in a basement storefront in Greenwich Village. So why had he chosen to throw himself against cold, hard fact?

Why did Charles always take the hard, uphill path, and take it alone?

 

 

Charles considered the question for a long moment before answering. “I suppose I ought to say I did it to level the playing field, but that’s not true. Honestly, I feel as if the sciences chose me. I’ve always been fascinated – particularly by genetics. It’s both ironic and wonderful that my studies have overlapped with the condition I was born with.”

 _Condition,_ Erik thought. _Sounds too much like a disease._ Charles hadn’t meant it that way, but was that what the crowd heard? Impossible to tell.

The room exploded into a hundred conversations at once – frantic, eager and hostile by turns. But the tide of fear that had been rising against Charles had dissipated into so many different directions that there was no chance of him being shouted at, or mocked. Or hurt.

Erik sat down again. Charles turned away and took another question.

**

The rest of the afternoon went more as Erik had expected. He got to hear what human scientists knew and didn’t know about mutants. He dutifully sat through a lecture on an archaeological artifact (some squat Aztec figure sitting like a lump on a lectern) that a researcher thought was the earliest historical representation of a mutated human being. There was a seminar on mutation in fish, during which Erik somehow managed to stay awake. Nobody was fashioning arcane scientific justifications for hatred of mutants yet, largely because most of them didn’t really believe in the wave that was coming … and either thought Charles was one in a million, or a charlatan.

Erik did not see Charles again. At first he assumed Charles would rest after the keynote address. Then he wondered if Charles was avoiding him.

Hardly surprising, if he were. Erik’s own plan for the Stanford conference had been to hide in the safety of numbers. Charles wouldn’t have been looking for him with either eyes or mind; Erik had thought he could control his emotions enough to avoid detection. Yes, the risk remained that Charles would simply turn his head at the wrong moment and see him, but Erik had thought discovering precisely what the scientific establishment knew about them was worth that danger.

Within minutes of seeing Charles again, Erik had blown his cover to defend him.

Five years. The whole world seemed to have changed. So why did the mere sight of Charles still have the power to rip him open?

That night there was a cocktail reception, a polite bore of an event mostly notable for the view of San Francisco Bay and the better-than-average quality of the champagne being served on trays. Erik told himself the excellence of the champagne was the reason he drank two glasses, then told himself the two glasses were the reason he went to a courtesy phone and asked to be connected to Charles Xavier’s room.

He answered on the first ring. “Professor Xavier.”

“It’s me.”

A long pause followed. “I didn’t think you’d call.”

“I didn’t either.”

“Apparently it’s your day to surprise us both.”

No shouting, at least not yet: They were both behaving better than Erik would have expected. So he ventured, “Not coming to the reception to represent mutantkind?”

“I’m exhausted. Jet lag. East Coast time. You know.” A polite brush-off, Erik thought, until Charles added, quietly, “You’re welcome to stop by if you want to talk.”

Erik knew he should say what he had to say over the phone, then hang up. He came to this conference to know his enemy, not to let Charles Xavier scar his heart anew. If there was one thing Erik didn’t need, it was yet more scars.

And yet he couldn’t bear the idea that Charles might think he was afraid to face him. “Which room?”

A ride in one of the glass elevators took Erik above ten-story atrium, to the outside of the Nakatomi Hotel. For a moment he looked out over the glittering lights of San Francisco and felt, very briefly, some of the awe the architects had been aiming for.

Then he thought it was idiotic to build a structure like this on a fault line. Typically human.

Charles’ room was at the very end of the hall, which seemed to stretch beneath Erik’s feet. The walk took forever. He rapped on the door, wishing even as he did so that he hadn’t. Too late – Charles called, “Wait a moment, I – oh. You can let yourself in.”

Erik took care of the chain lock and deadbolt himself, then stepped inside. The suite was elegant enough to make the mansion seem ordinary, but Erik hardly noticed that. His eyes were only for Charles.

Yes, he appeared older. And yet something about the receding hairline suited him, in a perverse way. Instead of looking like an overgrown schoolboy as he had five years ago, Charles now wore his authority with the same assurance and comfort as his tailored suit. His wheelchair might as easily have been a throne. His features were sharper now, like his gaze.

Evenly, Charles said, “It’s good to see you, Erik. You look well.”

“So do you.”

“You must have been very worried, to risk exposure at a conference like this.”

Erik frowned. He preferred for Charles to think of him as unafraid. “Know thy enemy.”

“And you continue to think they’re all the enemy.”

“They nearly turned against you today.”

“They were alarmed, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t have handled.” Charles paused. “Still … I appreciated your stepping in. You defused the tension admirably.”

Outside, the windows showed the same spectacular view of San Francisco Bay. Erik moved to stand in front of them, steadying himself by sensing the metal of the ever-growing skyline. “You’ve exposed yourself as a mutant. You realize what they’ll do to you?”

“I expect I’ll be invited to fewer conferences. That’s probably about it.”

“Always naïve.”

“Always cynical.”

But there was no anger behind the words, from either of them.

 

 

Turning his head from the city lights, Erik said, “That was what I wanted to talk to you about. Your decision to speak out today. To identify yourself publicly.”

“I honestly believe I’ve put no one else at risk,” Charles said. He’d clearly thought about this a great deal; his hands wove together in his lap, a sign that he was agitated. Erik hadn’t thought he would remember that sign. “My school isn’t well-known. There’s no reason for an outsider to assume that because I’m a mutant, my students are as well. Given how short-sighted most scientists remain about the prevalence of radical human mutation, I think it’s the last thing they’d suspect. And if they do guess – if they do try to come after us – well. We can defend ourselves.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Erik stared out the window again. “Didn’t you realize that? I couldn’t very well wear the helmet to an event like this.”

“I’m not reading your thoughts. I have to work not to, but – I’m not. Obviously you wouldn’t like it.”

 

 

The chill had crept into their conversation. Charles disliked being reminded that Erik wanted to shut him out of his head. Given the things they used to do when they shared thoughts – shared feelings, physical sensations, the depth of love, the thrill of ecstasy – well. No wonder.

It was past time for him to say what he had to say and get out.

“You’re more than capable of protecting your students. And I know you wouldn’t expose the rest of us.” Glancing back from the city scene, Erik continued, “I thought what you did today was –”

“Foolhardy? Dangerous?”

“Yes. That’s why it was also brave.”

How Charles’ face changed then. Erik felt an old, familiar ache at the thought that Charles would no longer believe Erik saw anything in him to admire.

“You’re a courageous man, Charles. Even though we’re fighting different battles, in different ways – I do see that. And I thought you should know.”

“Thank you,” Charles said quietly. They smiled at each other – tight, thin smiles, but the sentiment was real enough. Just as Erik thought he should leave on this note, Charles added, “I know I’ve no right to ask, but I must. How is Raven?”

“Mystique is very well.” Her real name was the only one she answered to any longer. “Captivated by first love.”

Charles sat up slightly straighter in his chair. His voice was formal as he said, “I hope you’re both happy.”

 _Leave it. Leave it. Say nothing._

And yet Erik answered, “The lucky man is Azazel. The teleporter with the red skin – you must remember him.”

“Oh.” Though Charles was clearly taken aback, Erik had to admit he recovered well. “Does Azazel … he cares for her, too, doesn’t he? He’s kind to her?”

Kind wasn’t really a word that could apply to Azazel. Yet Erik liked that Charles would ask. “He’s passionate about her. They’re much alike, in some ways. I think it’s a good match.”

Slowly Charles nodded. “That’s good to hear. I suppose you’re well? You look better than ever.”

The words were so offhand, so casual. And yet they wrapped themselves around Erik, dulling his caution, making him wonder how he appeared through Charles’ eyes. “I work hard. But I’ve never minded that.”

“No, you never did.”

That wasn’t what Charles had been asking, of course. What he meant was, _Are you alone, or do you have friends, companions, a lover who matters to you? Do you still have the nightmares? Do you have a place to call a home?_

Erik could only have answered that he would always be alone. That Mystique had been his lover for a time – but that she had realized even before Erik did that nobody would ever take Charles’ place in his heart. He’d had no home since the mansion. And the nightmares would always be a part of him.

“I’m all right,” Erik said. “And you? How are you?”

Charles thought that over for a few minutes. “In some ways, wonderful. It turns out that I love running a school. Who would’ve thought?”

“I would’ve.” Erik couldn’t resist a small smile. Against his better judgment, he sat on the corner of the bed, only a couple feet from Charles. “You get to be surrounded by your books, and you get to talk about your theories, and you’re always in charge.”

“Hmm. When you put it that way.” Charles relaxed further; his smile had changed less than anything else about him. “Let’s see. My research is going well. The students are a delight, at least when they’re not blowing things up. Literally. So all of that is everything I could ask for.”

Their eyes met. Erik understood that he was being given permission not to hear the rest, if he chose not to. He knew that was the wise choice, for both their sakes.

He said, “And the rest?”

Charles looked down – at his chair, Erik realized. “This transition has been difficult,” he said, then laughed, a small hollow sound. “Do you know, that’s the first time I’ve admitted that out loud?”

Erik wanted to apologize, wanted to rehash every moment of that terrible day to either excuse himself or condemn himself, wanted to cry. He said only, “How bad is it?”

“Not as bad as it is for most in my situation. I experience some sensation below the injury – just not that much, and it comes and goes. I can move, but very little.” To demonstrate, Charles shifted his right leg slightly to the side. “That’s unpredictable too. I can care for myself more than most people with spinal cord damage, but it looks as though I’ll never walk again. All my abilities and all my money don’t change that.”

He said it all without blame. How could Charles not blame Erik in the slightest?

Haltingly, Erik said, “You know that if – if I could go back and change everything – ”

“Please. Don’t.” Then Charles sighed. “I don’t mean to be curt. I understand completely, Erik. I’d change things too. But we can’t return to the past.”

“No. We can’t.” Erik rose. “I should go.”

“Yes. You should. But – I’m glad you came. Thank you for calling. For being willing to talk.”

Erik simply nodded. He didn’t trust anything he might say.

“Will you be at the conference tomorrow as well?”

“For a time.” There was a panel discussion on the potential for creating mutations in laboratory experiments that he intended to hear. “And you?”

“Yes. If they’ll have me.”

“They’d better.”

They smiled at each other, and something about that smile was sadder than anything Erik had seen in five years.

He wanted to hold his hand out to Charles before he left. He didn’t. Instead he returned to the reception and drank another glass of champagne, then a couple of martinis, which made his head blurry enough that he thought he might be able to lie in bed and pass out without ever once having to think.

As he drifted off, he drunkenly tried to imagine sealing his heart in the strongest steel, then the blackest iron, then the hardest titanium, layer after layer after layer, until nobody could guess at the shape within.

**

Charles Xavier had always been a sound sleeper, a fact for which he was deeply grateful. Hearing other people’s thoughts all day was sometimes wearying, and he wondered how much worse it would be if he had to deal with other people’s REM visions all night as well.

That night, though, sleep was slow to come.

 _Why did I say all that to him, about how hard this has been? I try not to speak about it. I try not even to think it; what good does that do? Instead I showed Erik how vulnerable I still am. I have to remember: This man is my enemy now._

No. Erik was not his enemy. Charles had tried to believe that for the past five years and knew Erik well enough to suspect he’d tried too.

Yet Erik had defended him by reframing the discussion in his keynote address, and in so doing eased his transition into becoming the first mutant to acknowledge his powers in public … in other words, the enormous, life-changing announcement Charles knew he really ought to be worrying about all night. Instead he remembered Erik asking after him, worrying about him, sitting on this very mattress. It was as if he could still see the outline of Erik’s body there in the dark, only a couple feet away.

 _He’s not with Raven, at least not any longer. I always thought they would – but Erik might not be with anyone now –_

 _Stop it.  
_  
It hardly mattered who Erik had in his bed, or didn’t. Charles would never be there again.

He looked down at his motionless legs, their thinness cruelly outlined by the moonlight filtering through the cracks of his room’s curtains. Then he glanced at the clock: 2:28 a.m.

Charles sighed heavily and wished for dawn.

Morning brought little comfort, though. The pre-conference breakfast featured soggy eggs, weak coffee and a scientific community torn between shunning him as a monster and regaling him with questions that seemed to get more ridiculous by the moment. As Charles found himself explaining that, no, he could not see the future in any sense, much less specifics about the stock market, he glimpsed Erik across the dining hall.

Erik looked hung over, determined on ignoring Charles no matter what, and somehow, impossibly, even more beautiful than he had been five years before.

It was so tempting to just brush across his mind, not to intrude, only to try to sense whether this reunion was as unexpectedly overwhelming for Erik as it was for him – but doing that would be betraying the trust Erik had showed by coming here without that damned helmet. Whatever else was broken between them, maybe that slender thread of faith could be preserved.

Charles bolted the rest of the vile coffee and wheeled himself to the first lecture a bit early.

This lecture promised to be the day’s most interesting. It asked: Could mutations be created? If so, could they be chosen? Given the prickly reaction to his own mutation, Charles suspected human volunteers for this would be slow to appear … but the ability to create a mutation suggested the ability to shape it. (He focused on this, the better to ignore Erik sitting across the ballroom.) So many mutants had powers that were incredibly difficult to use or to live with. Even well-developed powers often hinted at a greater potential that could not quite be realized. If those mutants could benefit someday from genetic modifications …

 _Close the lobby on my mark._

The thought rang through Charles’ mind, so forceful that it intruded over the lecture. He jerked his head toward the door, wondering for a moment if he’d actually heard it with his ears; it was loud enough for that, so loud he’d felt as if it were a crash of thunder. But nobody else in the room showed any sign of having heard anything.

Charles glanced at Erik then; perhaps by chance, Erik was looking at him too. As their eyes met, Charles wondered whether Erik had understood that something out of the ordinary was happening – whether his reaction had been enough to tip him off, whether their connection remained so strong they still had that instant understanding –

\--and then Erik got up and walked out of the lecture. Not to investigate: merely to get away from Charles’ gaze. Telepathy wasn’t necessary to tell that much; it was painfully obvious.

As the back door of the ballroom clicked open, then shut, Charles tried to put aside his emotions and seek that voice he’d heard in his mind before. Almost immediately, it rang out again:

 _Phone in the bomb threat now. Then we’ll head to the tenth floor. Too late for them to do anything but clear out the useless._

Bomb threat? Charles sensed that this was a feint – merely a diversion – but a diversion for what? The speaker wasn’t psychic, but his spoken words reverberated with greater than usual force; it was possible that his abilities included the power of suggestion.

Yes, abilities: Charles no longer had any doubt that the person giving these orders was a fellow mutant.

The vision of a flash of lightning flickered in his mind.

What that meant in any literal sense, he didn’t know, but one thing was clear: They were in danger.

“Excuse me,” he called out, interrupting the speaker from MIT. Heads swiveled his way in surprise and irritation. Well, his reputation was shot already. “I think we need to evacuate the tenth floor.”

The professor from MIT, a Dr. Janacek, frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“Someone’s coming to the tenth floor, which presumably means he’s coming after this conference, and he’s up to no good. More than that – he’s not alone.” Charles could begin to sense the other minds now … three additional mutants, but perhaps some humans too, smaller in the leader’s regard than the rest ….

“Is this meant to be a display of your so-called mutation?” Janacek folded his arms. “If your talents are as prodigious as you claim, Professor Xavier, can’t you tell precisely what this person is up to? No good, you say – but in a hotel, that might as easily mean a tired businessman and a call girl.”

Chuckles echoed around the room. Even those inclined to believe in Charles’ power apparently were eager to see him taken down a peg.

Again, this was irrelevant. “I’m trying to read what I can, but all I know so far is that four mutants are headed this way, and their intentions are not good.”

“Is this some bit of staged street theatre?” Janacek bellowed. “Or another damned sit-in? Is it going to be ‘mutant liberation’ now?”

“We should be so lucky,” Charles said, but his voice was drowned out by the laughter and muttering through the ballroom – and now those mutant presences were coming closer, their intent focusing ever sharper, focusing on the door of this very room –

The wall exploded inward, and the laughter turned into screams.

People dove for the floor; Charles, unwilling to abandon his chair, merely covered his head against the flying debris as best he could. Fortunately the outer wall of the ballroom was fairly thin stuff – no bricks or mortar – but tiny, razor-thin cuts pricked his hands and scalp, and he began coughing violently from the swirling grit in the air.

The explosion had ended, though, and the grit was only becoming thicker …

The words came in a roar: “So, the best minds of the human world want to study mutants? Now you have more to study.”

Charles lifted his head, blinking against the whirlwinds of dust, to see an enormous man – six foot six at least, and more than proportionately wide – with tawny eyes that glittered like bronze dust. His hands were braced on his hips, and his satisfied grin shone through the gritty gloom surrounding them. The other mutants stood on either side of him: a muscular young man with flowing golden hair, who had clad himself in what appeared to be a Greek toga; and two women so alike they had to be identical twins, except that the bedraggled, veiled dresses they wore were different colors – one black, one brown. None of these three made any move to speak; their attention was only for their leader, who took a step forward to admire his handiwork.

“I answer to the name Sandstorm,” he said. “And from now on, all of you answer to me.”

 

 

**

The observation deck of the Nakatomi Hotel ringed the 47th floor, providing an unparalleled view of the San Francisco cityscape. Erik stood there, smoking one of his rare cigarettes in an attempt to regain his calm.

What had Charles meant by turning to him that way? There had been something so urgent about it that Erik had nearly risen and crossed the room to his side, willing to hear whatever he had to say, to do whatever Charles thought needed to be done. And this was precisely the kind of thinking Erik could no longer afford.

If it had been really important, he told himself, Charles wouldn’t have stopped at a look. He’d have reached into Erik’s mind and communicated directly. So Charles must have been trying to get his attention for … well, for other reasons.

Erik put one hand to his aching temple, once again regretting those drinks last night. Or maybe the problem was that he hadn’t drunk enough. He should have kept going, drinking himself into oblivion.

Sooner or later, he would do that or something similarly destructive if he remained at this conference. Surely Charles’ resolve wouldn’t hold, either; he’d reach into Erik’s mind and Erik would either hate him for it or remember what it had felt like to love him.

 _Forget it,_ he thought. _You heard what you came to hear, except the lecture you’re missing right now. Go pack your bags and get out of this hotel. Out of this city. As far away from Charles as possible._

Erik ground out his cigarette in the white sand of the deck’s pillar ashtray, then turned toward the door … when suddenly, the entire building rocked.

As tourists shrieked all around him, Erik remembered his thoughts yesterday about the San Andreas Fault. Even as he reached for the steel frame of the building, hoping to steady it and himself, he realized the tremor was no earthquake – the cars below sped along the streets, and already the motion was stilling.

“Look!” someone cried, and Erik joined the throng at the observation deck railing. Below them, ash and debris spewed out from one arc of the circular building, much farther down.

Around the tenth floor, perhaps.

Erik remembered the expression on Charles’ face, the urgency there, and it all seemed so much clearer now. Why hadn’t he realized that Charles was trying to tell him something?

But no. He had understood. He just … hadn’t wanted to understand.

A maroon-vested hotel employee stepped out onto the deck. “Ladies and gentlemen, a bomb threat has been called in – no doubt just another protest, but – ”

“Threat, nothing!” a heavyset woman shouted. “It already exploded!”

“The elevators are down – everybody – get to the stairwell!” the employee said, his white face giving the lie to his next words: “Don’t panic!”

Screams began to echo across the deck. Erik hardly noticed. He could concentrate on only one fact: The elevators were shut down. Even if Charles weren’t in the thick of that mess below, there was no way for him to get out.

Charles was trapped.

Erik let the crowds of frightened tourists flood past him, shifting backward step by step until he was too far around the curve of the observation deck for anyone else to see him. Then he pushed himself up on the railing, slung his legs over the 47-floor drop, and jumped.

For a moment the world was nothing but cold, rushing air, the nauseating feeling of having nothing underfoot, San Francisco’s streets zooming up toward him, and primal fear that even Erik couldn’t wholly control.

What he could control, however, was his relationship to the metal frame of the Nakatomi Hotel.

He reached out to the steel girders, anchoring himself to them and gradually changing the pace of his descent. Erik fell quickly, then slowly, until he was nearly levitating. Cautiously he lowered himself to the broken windows on the tenth floor – and the eleventh, too, which appeared to be equally damaged. The smell of smoke was absent, nor did anything appear to be on fire. Could this really be the aftermath of a bomb? Surely not.

And yet some incredible force had ripped an enormous hole in the side of the Nakatomi Hotel. Jagged glass and twisted metal jutted out from the opening like the fangs of a monster; Good God, Charles was in the heart of all this. Amid the high winds and swirling sand, Erik braced himself against one side of the building before peering into the building.

Squinting against the sandy grit filling the air, Erik realized that he could hardly see inside – but he could hear very well.

“This conference wishes to scrutinize mutants. To measure us. To control us,” said a deep, booming voice. “Do you see now how puny your efforts at control must be?”

Mutants? Erik dared to lean further into the maw of the wreckage. Standing in what had been the tenth-floor hallway were four people so unshaken by the damage that they had to be responsible for it. The golden boy in the toga, the women in their ragged dresses, and then the speaker, an enormous man whose skin seemed to glitter slightly like the sand that blew around him –

And Charles sat there in his chair, straight and confident, while all the humans cowered on the ground. Erik would have expected no less.

Yet that meant Charles was the one in the greatest danger.

**

“I beg your pardon,” Charles said, “but precisely what do you hope to accomplish? Do you want to demonstrate that mutants are reckless and violent? Because I can’t think what else you believe you’re proving here, Sandstorm.”

The mutant apparently known as Sandstorm laughed, a rich, rippling sound. “Charles Xavier! The papers spoke of you today. Did you see what they called you? A freak. A con artist. A liar.”

Evenly, Charles replied, “News headlines aren’t my main concern. What is yours? What goal do you want to achieve?”

Sandstorm put his hands on his hips, revealing the full broad span of his shoulders. “I wish to demonstrate mutant existence. Mutant power. Mutant superiority.”

That sounded a bit like Erik. Charles remembered the way Erik had stalked off earlier; as much as it had hurt at the time, now he was glad of it. Erik was out of this mess; Erik was safe. That comforted him more than he would’ve wished.

Yet that comfort only went so far. Of all the wretched luck. Some maniac had decided to make this conference into his personal soapbox – and had done so in the most destructive way possible. Charles had often worried about what Erik and the Brotherhood would eventually do, but he’d never thought they would go off half-cocked. Erik might be a zealot, but he would never have done anything as crude and foolish as this.

And yet Sandstorm’s mind – what Charles could sense of it, as he seemed to possess some natural shielding – seemed so unlike Erik’s. His emotions were more base: Pride, cruelty and … greed.

Greed?

Two of the human scientists at the very edge of the room, perhaps sensing that Sandstorm was distracted, scurried for the hallway and possible escape. But Sandstorm shouted, “Widow! Recluse! Invite our guests to remain.”

Both of the women instantly shot something toward the men – spider-silk? Something very like it, anyway: The two scientists were instantly netted to the ground, struggling to move freely, in vain.

He had to put a stop to this. Charles straightened in his chair and projected, as strongly as possible, a sense of caution and remorse. “This is unnecessary,” he said, his voice taking on an eerie calm. “You’ve thought better of it.”

A hush fell over the conference; nobody was even moving now. They saw what he was trying to do. Nobody was laughing at telepathy now.

Except – Charles straightened in alarm as he realized this – except Sandstorm himself.

**

Sandstorm hesitated, and Erik realized instantly what was happening: Charles was using his mental powers to force Sandstorm to give up.

And why should Sandstorm give up? Yes, a hotel had been damaged, but that was nothing, really – a small price to pay to make a statement. Nothing had happened to anyone except that a couple of scientists had become extremely sticky. It was not the way Erik would have taken a stand; he felt some chagrin that Sandstorm had beaten him to it. But when Sandstorm had spoken of mutant rights and mutant superiority, Erik had wanted to cheer every word from his mouth.

Now here was Charles, abusing his powers in just the way Erik had always dreaded. He had half a mind to step in, join forces with Sandstorm and dare Charles to stop him too – if Charles would betray him by warping his mind, and maybe he would –

But then Sandstorm’s entire body rippled as sand whirled around it … no, as sand became a part of it. As the scientists murmured in dismay and Erik watched in fascination, Sandstorm’s flesh turned into glittering beige stone. His broad, stubby hands reached out, and sheets of glistening sand formed between Charles and Widow, Recluse and the third mutant.

“Try your powers against us now, Xavier!” Sandstorm shouted. “Can you project through stone? Through sand whirling so dense and fast that it is denser than any rock?”

Charles’ face remained steady. “It appears I can’t. So I can’t force you to leave. But I will still try to persuade you.”

Sandstorm stepped closer to Charles, his stone feet booming against the floor. “What will persuade me is power for the people. Power for our people. Nothing else. And that, Professor Xavier, is beyond your ability to grant.”

So, this was a political protest. Charles and the other researchers would be mildly inconvenienced at worst. A Japanese luxury hotel would collect handsomely from its insurance company; no more harm would be done. The government would be asked to grant something to Sandstorm in the name of all mutants. They might strike back in force; they might offer no more than a token. In either case, Erik thought, his best bet was to remain close by, invisible to any observers, and be prepared to help the mutants escape when the human authorities arrived.

He carefully levitated himself inside the hotel, working around the bent metal wreckage. The torn steel beams seemed to ache at every shear. Erik went low to the floor, remaining beneath the whirling winds and debris that still surrounded Sandstorm. He crawled behind the wreckage around the ring of the building, until he could barely see the hostage situation that the conference had become – or be seen by anyone there. Only two figures remained entirely clear to Erik: Sandstorm, who was walking to a hotel courtesy phone in the hallway – and Charles, still sitting in his chair, hands steepled and forehead furrowed. Erik was no more than twenty feet away from Charles now.

 _Charles,_ are you determined to resist us all? Erik thought. _Any mutant who stands up for our own kind? Will humans always be your first priority?_

 _If I fight alongside Sandstorm, will you fight me?_

But wait. What was Sandstorm saying?

**

Charles steepled his hands as he listened.

On the courtesy phone, Sandstorm listed his demands to whomever was on the other end of the line: Resolutions from both the United States and Californian state bodies that mutants had equal rights under law. The introduction of a constitutional amendment to guarantee such rights. An international conference at the United Nations, to be proposed, sponsored and supported by the United States.

These were ambitious resolutions. But they were resolutions much like those Charles would have hoped to work for himself – through due process, of course.

They were nothing like the measures Erik might have demanded in a similar situation. Erik, in fact, would laugh at putting such faith in human institutions. Sandstorm should have felt the same way, if not even more cynical. What the hell was going on?

Once again he reached with his mind toward Sandstorm’s. Thunder rolled again inside Charles’ head, and he imagined a far-off crash of lightning. Though he could not influence Sandstorm’s mind, nor even get enough of a hold to try, Charles realized he could sense some of the thoughts there. Distantly, and only those most on the surface … but those were the ones that told the whole outrageous story.

When Sandstorm turned back to the gathering, it was to Charles he spoke: “What do you think now, Xavier? Why throw in your lot with humans? Think of the future. Join us.”

For a moment Charles thought of the beach, Erik’s guarded eyes, fear and terror and pain. The last time he’d stood on his own two feet. We want the same thing.

Charles collected himself. “You were correct. I can’t influence your mind through stone – and you can apparently shield your associates.”

Sandstorm laughed. “Have you been trying all this time? What a waste of effort.”

“I haven’t been trying to influence you,” Charles answered. “I’ve been trying to read you. Your thoughts are loud and clear despite the stone, Sandstorm. They’ve told me how little respect you have for your ‘colleagues’ – more like your hired underlings. They’ve told me that you have a strange obsession with thunder and lightning. And they’ve told me more than you want me to know about your real reason for doing this.”

The man’s smile was fading fast. It felt good to wipe the smugness from his face.

Charles continued, “You cooked up this entire ‘political protest’ to make sure humankind would know that mutants were responsible. You’re proud enough for that, even if it’s not how I’d define pride. But it doesn’t have a single thing to do with why you’re here.”

“What?” One of the scientists was startled enough to speak out of turn. “What are you talking about?”

Sandstorm’s voice, when low, sounded like the grinding of rock on rock. “Be quiet if you know what’s good for you, Xavier.”

But Charles had no intention of being quiet.

“You don’t give a damn about mutant rights.” Charles put his hands on either arm of his wheelchair as if he could rise from it to stand toe to toe with Sandstorm by force of will alone. “That’s only a pretext. The disguise for your real plan. You’ve shut down the hotel for a robbery. For money.”

A weird silence fell. The two spider twins looked at each other, clearly dismayed, and a murmur spread through the scientists. Sandstorm tried to recover. “Money? We’re not after money.”

“Not literally, no. To be specific, you’re after a 200-carat emerald you believe is on the premises but that you’re not quite sure how to find. It hardly matters. The point is, for all your talk about mutantkind, this stunt of yours has nothing to do with us. All you care about is getting rich.”

 _And God help anyone who gets in your way, Charles began to add, before realizing_ … he was the only one in the way.

**

A robbery?

Sandstorm had exposed mutants everywhere, and given humanity an excuse to hate and hunt them, for the sake of a _robbery_?

The rage swept over Erik like a fever, heating his blood and narrowing his eyes, and he sucked in a sharp breath that was dusty with grit. Without thinking, before he could even stop himself, he sent a loose beam jutting from the damaged wall slicing toward Sandstorm, ready to impale the man –

\--but the metal bounced off his stony surface and clattered to the floor. Sandstorm hardly seemed to notice it; probably he thought it no more than the aftermath of the wreckage he’d caused.

Charles wasn’t the only one powerless against Sandstorm.

“Our kind tell stories among themselves,” Sandstorm said. One of his burly fists reached out toward Charles and clenched his shirt and jacket between the enormous stone fingers. “They say you are the most powerful of us all. Now that I’ve met you, I wonder why.”

Erik half-rose, ready to throw every fragment of metal in the hotel at Sandstorm this moment if it would make him let Charles go – but he’d be more likely to hurt Charles than to cause a dent in Sandstorm’s rock-hard skin. That was a risk he couldn’t take.

But did that mean he simply had to remain here and watch Charles in danger?

Sandstorm boomed, “Delius! Why don’t you make it clear how powerful we are?”

The young toga-clad man bent one arm backward, much as if he were preparing to throw a javelin or spear. When he thrust it forward, a long slim projectile of flame shot out, firm as any arrow, and embedded itself in one of the scientists. The victim’s screams were only slightly louder than the others in the room; they didn’t last as long.

“No!” Charles cried. “Sandstorm, don’t do this. You’re taking lives needlessly – people who never harmed you, never harmed any of us – “

“Powerful? You?” Sandstorm bodily lifted Charles from his wheelchair, one hand fisted in his tie and collar. Charles gasped for breath as his hands pushed uselessly against Sandstorm’s bulk. “You’re not even the equal of a human. At least humans can walk.”

And Sandstorm threw Charles onto the ground.

Erik’s anger rose to a pitch it had equaled only a few times in his life; until this moment, he had not known anybody but Sebastian Shaw was capable of igniting this kind of white-hot rage in his soul. The heat of it was so intense that it burned away reckless behavior and left behind the terrible calm of hatred.

It burned away five years’ worth of denial, and left Erik with only the truth.

As Charles pushed himself up onto his forearms, Sandstorm said, “You might have the mind-reading power to help me find the emerald, Xavier. That means you might have the power to keep yourself alive.”

“I am not a thief,” Charles shot back. “Nor have I sensed any thoughts about the emerald whatsoever. So you’re out of luck.”

Sandstorm sneered, “That makes you even more useless than I thought.” One of his massive feet shoved Charles in the chest so hard Charles rolled several feet across the floor, choking for breath.

While his fists clenched so hard his bones ached, Erik imagined grinding stone to sand.

“I’ll put you aside.” Sandstorm grabbed Charles by one arm, which had to have been agonizing for Charles, though he didn’t cry out. “The humans should be the ones to die first, of course. And maybe you’ll decide it’s better to be a thief than to fall ten stories to the lobby. I could just kick you over the side, and there’s not a damn thing you could do about it, is there? Unless you think evolution might yet give you the power of flight.”

Voice tight with pain, Charles replied, “Evolution apparently passes some of us by.”

Sandstorm’s eyes narrowed; he’d caught the insult. Either because of it or out of sheer cruelty, he bodily threw Charles into one of the anterooms. The thud echoed even over the fury of the storm still shredding the Nakatomi.

Erik remained motionless until after Sandstorm had locked the door.

There would be time to deal with Sandstorm later. Not much later, either.

Now nothing mattered but getting to Charles.

**

 _Well_ , Charles thought, _that was horrific._

His ribs ached as he attempted to push himself into a sitting position, and for a moment he thought he might collapse onto the floor again. But he managed to prop himself against something – a cardboard box, filled with God only knew what. This room appeared to be in temporary use as some kind of supply area, but it lacked the only items that would have been of interest to Charles at the moment – a telephone, ice for the bruises no doubt blossoming all over his body, and a stiff gin and tonic.

Charles braced himself as best he could and attempted to assess the damage to the lower half of his body. In his condition, multiple bones could be broken without his ever knowing it – at least, not until sepsis set in. But everything seemed to remain firm beneath his palms.

 _At least Erik got out of this mess in time_ , Charles reminded himself. It was his one consolation.

Only one day after he’d come forth as the first mutant to publicly acknowledge his status, the first act of mutant terrorism had been committed … and he didn’t need Erik’s cynicism to know which would garner the most attention. The scientific community Charles had hoped to cultivate into a body of allies – intelligent people at the largest universities and companies in the world, and those most likely to get past their initial kneejerk reactions through sheer reason and evidence – well, right now they were being held hostage and murdered by mutants. Sandstorm was after a gemstone that, apparently, no one in the Nakatomi Hotel had thought about in the past several hours, nor had any idea how to find. And once again, all his abilities were useless. Charles couldn’t tell Sandstorm to stop any of this, even when Sandstorm was humiliating him by kicking him around like a broken doll.

Well, this wasn’t about his pride. Charles forced himself to concentrate. What did he have that he could use? That vision Sandstorm kept having, the one about the lightning – it was significant, he was sure of it, but that remained useless until he put the context together. Maybe his money could actually do some good here. As much as he hated the idea of enriching Sandstorm’s band of thugs, if ransom could keep people alive, then maybe …

One of the square panels in the drop ceiling began to move, and Charles looked up in alarm. Then he saw Erik’s face peering down from the darkness.

“Erik?” Charles whispered. “What are you doing here?”

Erik used his powers to slow his descent to the floor. His dark eyes burned with an almost startling intensity as he kneeled by Charles’ side. “Is it so surprising that I wouldn’t leave you behind?”

“No. I didn’t mean that.” Charles let his hand rest on Erik’s forearm for a moment; Erik’s skin seemed so warm. Their clothing was equally disheveled by now – rumpled slacks and untucked shirts. Charles’ tie still clung to his neck, though loosely. Erik had abandoned his and rolled up his sleeves. “I hoped you were safely out of this. That’s all.”

“Are you injured?” Erik’s hand brushed along his cheek, perhaps checking for bruises, and a scrape or cut Charles hadn’t yet noticed began to burn.

“Only my pride.”

 

 

“That, my friend, is indestructible.” They shared a quick smile, and somehow Sandstorm’s humiliations had already lost a bit of their sting. Then, to Charles’ astonishment, Erik’s hand slid around his waist, half as though he were folding Charles in an embrace. “Come on. Sling your arm around my shoulders. I can get us out through the roof and down the side of the building.”

“Wait – Erik, what are you doing?” Charles resisted the urge to put his arm around Erik regardless. “We can’t just leave.”

Erik stared at him. “What are you talking about? I just told you, we can.”

“The scientists inside – ”

“Are human beings. Other humans will rescue them. We can look out for our own.” Just at the moment when Charles thought he could curse Erik for that attitude, Erik continued, “You’re the one he’s singled out. You’re the one in the most danger, Charles. I need – I think you should be safe. Sandstorm can be dealt with later.”

“Consider the ramifications,” Charles said quietly. His hand found Erik’s forearm again, and he dared to rest it there, hoping the touch might remind Erik of a day when he trusted Charles’ judgment, at least a little. “Now the whole world knows me to be a mutant. If I escape an act of mutant violence where humans have died, without being part of the solution? Not only am I likely to end up in prison, but it’s also the death of any potential sympathy or tolerance for our people.”

“Assuming it was alive to begin with,” Erik shot back. But his gaze had turned inward, which Charles recognized as a sign he was reconsidering.

“They’ll start coming after us tomorrow, if I flee today,” Charles insisted. “In force. En masse. We may be strong, but I don’t think we’re ready to take on the entire armed forces not deployed in Vietnam. And I don’t like to think what will happen to the young mutants who manifest when we can’t reach them.”

Erik swore in German. “I can’t just leave you here.”

“You can and you will. But you can move against Sandstorm and his band in ways I can’t – wait. You threw that beam at him, didn’t you?”

“I did. He’s tough, unfortunately. Anything I can do that would take him out would take the scientists with him, and maybe you as well.” Erik brushed something from Charles’ forehead – soot, or perhaps a speck of blood. All Charles knew was that his skin tingled beneath Erik’s touch. “At least let me get you away from Sandstorm. Out of this room. We can work together against him.”

“Me? I’d only slow you down.” Charles pushed aside the bitterness. “It’s impossible, Erik. If I got out of here, he’d know I had help. He’d be on to you, which would only put you in greater danger. You have to leave me behind.”

Erik shook his head. “No.”

“You know you have to!” It took effort, now, for Charles to keep his voice down. “You understand why as well as I do, and I don’t know why you keep arguing when – ”

Charles was silenced by Erik’s mouth crushing against his own.

At first he could hardly recognize this as a kiss – Erik was too forceful, he was too astonished to kiss back, and his brain seemed to be trailing along after events like a sonic boom behind a jet at Mach 2. But when Erik pulled away, Charles found himself bringing his hand to Erik’s face and drawing him close again. This time their mouths were open. Erik took him in his arms. Even after five years Charles remembered the taste of him. The kiss went on and on, drowning out fear and pain, everything else around them.

Why had he ever pretended that he wasn’t still in love with Erik? No, not why – how? Charles felt as if something in him that had been screaming with need for five years had finally fallen silent, so he could again hear the rustle of his clothes beneath Erik’s fingers, the fast rise and fall of their breath, the wet hungry sounds of tongues and lips.

When finally they broke apart, they stared at each other for a long moment. Then Erik said, in a voice so rough it sent chills down Charles’ spine, “I can’t leave you behind. And now you know why.”

“Erik.” Charles raked his hands through Erik’s hair, fighting the urge to pull him back into another kiss – to pretend that they could escape from their past and their present together. That temptation was dangerous now; it could kill them both. “You know much more than my life is at stake here.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m willing to sacrifice you.”

“Then let’s figure a way out of this for everyone. Together, maybe, we stand a chance.”

Although Erik’s expression suggested that he still didn’t fully agree, he finally nodded. Charles let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He didn’t let go of Erik; they remained in their embrace, as if it were again totally natural for them to talk tactics in each other’s arms.

“All right,” Charles said, taking a deep breath. “I stay here. Maybe I can – I don’t know, come up with some story about the emerald he’s looking for. Claim I know where it is, lead him off the track.”

“That’s good.” Erik’s brow furrowed as he considered options, his quicksilver mind obviously hard at work. “Separate him from the others. Then I can be more effective. The others I could take down with simple projectiles, particularly when he’s not shielding them, but Sandstorm himself – I’ll have to go in hard. I might have to take out whatever part of the building he’s in at the time to do it. So we’ll have to get you away from him eventually.”

“If you can’t, you have to take him out anyway. We have to do it; I accept that.”

Erik’s dark eyes flashed, but he said only, “I can get you away from him, and I will. There’s no need for a Plan B.”

Charles didn’t share Erik’s absolute conviction, but there was no point in arguing now. And if there was a way for him to survive this, he preferred to take it. “Is there some place in particular that you think would work better? For you to trap him, I mean.”

“The lobby would be best, but that’s where we’re most likely to run into trouble with the police. So better the observation deck on the 47th floor.”

“If the police want to arrest him – ”

“Yes, yes, you trust the human authorities. I know. But face facts, Charles. The police force can’t handle anyone like Sandstorm.”

With a sigh and a nod, Charles acknowledged this. “Very well. The 47th floor it is. Then – when we trap him, what do we do?”

“Leave him to me.” Erik cocked his head, obviously surprised that he wasn’t receiving an argument. “Another thing you could do – the best way for you to help me, obviously – ”

“Anything.”

“Share your thoughts with me. Let me know what Sandstorm’s doing, every moment.” He hesitated before adding, “Let me know you’re still all right.”

Charles breathed in sharply. He had not fully shared Erik’s mind since the last time they made love, two nights before that cataclysmic day on the beach. Erik had taken pride in the helmet that divided them – and worn it as a statement that he no longer trusted Charles to behave with even basic decency. The helmet seemed to Charles to be the tangible proof that Erik’s love for him had turned to hatred overnight.

And here was Erik, holding him close, inviting him into his head, only to keep Charles safe.

Slowly, Charles nodded. He put his hands on either side of Erik’s face; the touch wasn’t necessary, but he wanted to give Erik full warning, the opportunity to withdraw his offer if he couldn’t face it. Though Erik’s face tightened like a man anticipating physical pain, he nodded.

The buffer Charles had kept between his mind and Erik’s fell. In flooded –

\--anger, so much anger it startled Charles, a thousand thrashing blades, some for the world and some for Charles and some still for the dead Sebastian Shaw, but most of them now directed at Sandstorm for his recklessness with the mutant cause and his cruelty to Charles –

\--fear that Charles would be killed or maimed even worse, thrown aside as trash by a brute with no sense of his value –

\--frustration at his inability to simply destroy Sandstorm and his mutants, at Charles’ insistence that the human lives inside had to be protected, coupled with the grudging understanding of why it was so –

\--and a love even deeper than it had been five years ago, because Erik knew now what it was to be loved, and the solitude he’d borne so willingly all the years of his youth had become shabby to him in the light of what they’d had and lost.

Charles heard a quiet sound, like stifled pain, but it had come from Erik’s throat, not his. He could well imagine what Erik saw in his own mind – his humiliation at being so helpless against Sandstorm, the sense that his dreams for this conference were turning to ash, and above all the helpless, hopeless love for Erik that had never burned out or even dimmed.

Yet he would never have expected Erik to be so moved by that. Never expected his love to still be so deeply returned.

Their eyes met. They were past any pretense now.

From beyond the thin wall of the side room came a crashing sound and a roar of anger. Sandstorm’s impatience reverberated through Charles’ mind as powerfully as the stomping of his feet did through the floor.

“You have to go,” Charles whispered. “Hurry.”

Stubborn as ever, Erik refused to move. “You’ll keep telling me what he’s doing at all times.”

“Yes.”

“Get him to the 47th floor. Do that and I’ll handle the rest.”

“I understand. And keep letting me know that you’re well. Unhurt.”

“Charles.” Erik pulled him close for one more kiss – a moment, no more, but long enough for Charles’ heart to constrict with pain and joy. Then he let go so quickly that Charles slumped back against the box. He went back up through the ceiling and replaced the panel without ever meeting Charles’ eyes again.

That was one thing Erik knew how to do, Charles thought; he never looked back.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“This thing is a complete clusterfuck,” Recluse muttered.

“Give it a chance, would you?” Widow continued pacing along the perimeter of the room, if you could call it a room after that loudmouth Sandstorm had ripped out a wall and a chunk of the floor. “You’re too much of a pessimist, dear sister.”

“And you’re Pollyanna. How can you not see disaster when it’s staring you in the face? We were supposed to get in, make a big statement, grab the rock, get out. The only part of this that has happened is the getting in. Now we’re stuck.”

“Give them time. Sandstorm is so bold – so audacious. I just know he can get us out of this and find the emerald!” As Widow sighed, she actually folded her hands against the side of her face. She must have seen some actress do that in a movie poster. That was the kind of ridiculous, romantic thing Widow would do.

“People are getting killed. I didn’t sign up for that!”

Widow shrugged. “If you didn’t understand that this would be an act of true daring and real risk, then you can only blame your own lack of imagination.”

Recluse folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall. The scientists they were “guarding” weren’t proving too difficult to keep an eye on; they mostly just sat there and cowered. Guess scientists weren’t much for putting up a fight.

Well, to be fair, who would put up a fight after Delius tossed a few of those flaming spears around, turned your friends into shish kebabs flambé?

Meanwhile, loudmouth and the pretty boy were arguing and trying not to be overheard doing it.

“You promised me the emerald,” Sandstorm growled. “You swore to me that it was here.”

“And so it is.” Delius had a maddeningly superior tone. Then again, he always did. He was like a Greek God and a Princeton legacy freshman wrapped into one: blond curls, perfect physique, a massive superiority complex and no ability to handle reality. “My powers allow me to sense the presence of the purest metals, the most flawless gemstones. All that is perfection and beauty, I am drawn to.”

 _All that is totally fatuous and crap, too_ , Recluse thought.

Delius continued, “The emerald is very near. We need but find it.”

“So find it.” Sandstorm’s heavy steps thudded against the floor; the abrasive surface of his feet had already ripped gashes in the thin carpet. “You claim an affinity with the emerald? Prove it!”

“Details are for puny mortals.”

Recluse wished she’d thought to steal a couple of mini-bottles of booze on the plane ride out to San Francisco. How was it she’d been talked into this trip again? Widow had been so cheerful when she told Recluse about it: “Go out to the West Coast! Have a few laughs!” Well, nobody was laughing.

Sandstorm turned away from Delius in disgust. “If we have to rip this place apart to find it, then, we do it.” He grinned; his teeth were the dingy tan of the desert. “But we won’t. Emeralds don’t just walk into hotels by themselves. Somebody, somewhere, knows where it is. And if we can’t scare it out of them, we’ll take it up with the psychic again. Rip it out of him instead.”

**

Erik worked his way through the air vents, hands and feet barely touching the metal as his power supported his weight. All the while, he tried to get used to the presence of Charles in his mind again. It was like holding a candle between his cupped hands, trying to protect that light without ever being burned –

 _I’m not going to hurt you,_ Charles thought, his voice startlingly clear. _I would never betray your trust like that. You won’t get burned._

 _Was your voice always this steady, Charles? Did my memory play tricks on me? I remembered it as more of a whisper._ It was the whisper that had told Erik he was loved as he fell asleep each night, the one that eased him out of his nightmares into pleasant dreams without ever waking him. Erik had thought he could never forget that, no more than he could get over the echoing silence left behind afterward.

Charles replied, _Probably you did hear it as ‘quieter’ then. I’ve been refining my telepathic abilities the past few years._

Which called to mind the question of how much more Charles was capable of now – what further control he might wield over an unshielded mind, like Erik’s at this moment. But the question was an academic one, for the moment. For now at least – in this crisis, this hour, he gave Charles his complete trust. He had to.

He wanted to.

No telling whether Charles had overheard that or not, but he chose that moment to open up to Erik in return. Though Erik could not hear Charles’ unprojected thoughts the same way Charles could hear his, their link allowed Erik to share a sense of where and how Charles was. He felt the cardboard box against Charles’ back – the peculiar not-entirely-total numbness of his legs – his fear for Erik, greater than his fear for himself – and the degradation of how Sandstone had treated him, while ruining all his hopes.

 _That man didn’t shame you,_ Erik insisted as he made his way toward the opening ripped open by Sandstorm’s blasts; the wind blew cold into the tunnel, tugging at his hair and stinging his eyes. _He never could. Sandstorm has only shamed himself by his greed and cruelty._

 _Very noble and wise of you to say so._ Charles’ resignation was as tangible to Erik as the jagged metal of the torn vent through which he pulled himself, or the 10-story drop below that only his powers saved him from. _But it’s impossible to feel like much of a man when you’re being kicked across the floor._

 _You are more man than a mindless thug like that could ever be, and you know it_. Though this was dangerous ground to tread on, Erik emphasized his words with the memory of kissing Charles again – how profoundly it had electrified him, how much his body had yearned for more of Charles’ touch –

 _Don’t,_ Charles replied. _Please._ There was yearning there, as strong as his own – but heartache, too, which convinced Erik to let it go, at least for now.

In every other sense, he was hanging on tight. The wind was harsher this high from the ground, and Erik had to use both his hands and his powers to keep himself from being blown away from the side of the Nakatomi – and if he wound up ten stories above the earth without any metal close enough to serve as an anchor, he would plummet to his death the same as any human.

Far beneath him he could see that emergency vehicles had begun to arrive; the blue lights were police cars, the red ones fire trucks and ambulances. A crowd of onlookers was gathering as well. Erik swore beneath his breath. Why hadn’t he defied convention and worn a black turtleneck this morning? In his white shirt and pale gray slacks, he might well be glimpsed even from so many stories below. Would authorities already wild with anti-mutant hatred – thanks to Sandstorm – shoot him on sight?

No, somehow, he had to work his way up from inside the building.

Even as he began angling himself back into the air duct, though, he felt a sharp spike of tension from Charles. What was happening to him?

In reply, Charles said, _Outside – in the conference room – there’s screaming. And pain, Erik, so much of it – it’s unbearable –_

So cruel – Charles forced to endure the agony of all those humans – and Erik’s anger peaked again. He wanted Charles to cut himself off from it if he could, but Charles’ next words in his mind cut off any protest and replaced it with cold fear:

 _Now he’s coming for me._

**

Sandstorm didn’t bother opening the door to the side room; he just walked through it, splintering it to shreds and ripping out some of the wall in the process. Even as Charles coughed and squinted his eyes against the swirling grit in the air, he thought, _Subtlety isn’t this one’s strong suit._

The joke eased Erik’s mind not at all. But Charles could not remain focused on Erik any longer; it was Sandstorm he had to deal with now.

“Delius just showed the scientific community even more about mutant capabilities,” Sandstorm said. The smell in the air was that of burned meat. As he stepped closer to Charles, each thud vibrating along the floor, he added, “Shall we show them that we don’t discriminate? That we provide equal opportunities for human and mutant alike to suffer?”

In a low voice, Charles said, “What you have done today will have repercussions far beyond this city or this hour. You’ve made all our lives more difficult from now on.” He would never know whether Erik’s paranoia had been justified before today, but anti-mutant feelings would be strong after this. Instead of presenting the world with the gift of their existence, Charles would from now on be fighting to prove mutants weren’t all like this greedy, cruel, shortsighted man. It was enough to make him sick.

Sandstorm understood none of it. “Why don’t I make your life more difficult right now? Say, with those legs of yours.” His enormous, gritty fist closed, as if he were imagining crushing Charles within it. “You can’t use ‘em. Can’t feel ‘em. Why don’t I just start cutting them off, then? Bit by bit. A toe here, a foot there, work my way up. You won’t feel the pain, so you can still think straight while you tell me where the emerald is in time to keep yourself from bleeding to death.”

Erik had heard that through him, and through Erik , Charles felt a bolt of pure terror and hatred. Charles was tempted to close off the link between their minds, lest Erik be goaded into doing something stupid in his defense –

\--Erik would still do that, Charles wouldn’t have dreamed that was possible even an hour before—

\--but no. He had to stick to the plan. Keep their minds linked. Remain focused. Get Sandstorm to the 47th floor.

“I’ve been searching their minds,” Charles said. He didn’t bother saying it politely; the angrier and more reluctant he sounded, the more likely Sandstorm would be to believe him. “There’s still nothing definite enough for me to identify who brought the emerald in – but – I might have an idea where it is.”

Delius frowned; Sandstorm didn’t look convinced. “If you don’t know who has it, how can you know where they put it?”

Charles drew himself up as best he could and tried to sound as arrogant as possible. “Obviously you have no idea how telepathy works.”

 

 

They bought it. Sandstorm began to grin, and Delius nodded in satisfaction. With a growl, Sandstorm said, “Where is it, then?”

“I’m still narrowing down its exact location,” Charles said, to stall as much time as possible, “but I know it’s not here at the conference. It’s in someone’s room. Someone on one of the highest floors – I’m getting an image, hmm, it’s not clear – ” This was part of the shtick of a fortuneteller he’d watched at a carnival once. “Near the observation deck, I think. Yes. Near the observation deck.”

“That’s the 47th floor,” Delius said eagerly. “You see? Do you still doubt my powers? My link to all that is great and good?”

Sandstorm’s grin remained hard. “That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

Charles took a deep breath. “If you take me up there, I might be able to get closer. Being, ah, closer to the impressions I’ve received helps me, um, recognize the location of that impression.” What vague crap. But they were getting desperate by now; they’d planned to be out of the Nakatomi long before law enforcement arrived on the scene. He thought they’d take the bait.

They did. Sandstorm’s hand closed around Charles’ belt and he towed Charles upward, slinging him over his shoulder like a bag of laundry. “Let’s take a trip upstairs, then. But two things you’d better remember. I’m leaving Delius and the spider sisters down here with the scientists. You don’t find the emerald for me fast enough, we’ll keep knocking them off. Say, one every fifteen minutes? You think that would keep you focused?”

“I’ll work as fast as I can,” Charles said, thinking, _And Erik will too._

“So that’s one thing for you to remember,” Sandstorm continued as he walked through the conference hall, Charles swaying back and forth on his massive shoulder and trying not to be seasick. “The second thing? You mess this up, and you’re gonna have even more stories to fall before you hit the ground.”

**

As much as Erik hated even the memory of Sebastian Shaw, he understood now how much he had learned from the man. Shaw had taught him the harshness of the world, how in the end only the strong survived. He’d learned to rely on no one but himself. And he had learned how to focus.

For instance, now, even as he heard Sandstorm’s voice echoing through Charles’ mind, threatening to cut him to shreds –

\--to maim the body Erik remembered so well, loved so much –

\--and yet remain totally focused on his goal.

He crawled through the wreckage littering the 10th floor, ignoring the crying and shouting from the hostages, the smell of scorched flesh. Even when he heard Sandstorm’s enormous feet thudding on the floor and knew that Charles had to be in his clutches, Erik didn’t look up. What mattered now was remaining hidden and getting closer to his goal, namely the elevator bank.

But it seemed like Sandstorm had the same idea.

His belly to the floor, Erik finally glanced up just enough to see Sandstorm in front of the elevator doors, hardly ten feet away now, with Charles slung over his shoulder. For a moment Erik thought Sandstorm didn’t realize the elevators would have been shut down, but instead of pushing the Up button, Sandstorm used his free arm to simply rip the elevator doors away. He flung them toward Erik, who used his powers to ensure that they would bounce harmlessly to his side.

How had Charles convinced Sandstorm so quickly? Erik had counted on having a little more time. He should have known better than to underestimate Charles. Ironically, Charles’ own powers of persuasion were now endangering the only plan they had.

“Hang on as best you can,” Sandstorm said to Charles, who was already trying to find purchase on the slabs of his captor’s form. “If you fall, nobody’s going to catch you.”

 _I would catch you,_ Erik thought. _I’ll follow you into the shaft. I’ll be right beneath you._

 _And then he’d be onto us, and you’d have to fight him at as disadvantage. The hostages could be killed, Charles sent back. I can hold on. Take care of yourself first. But – thank you._

Sandstorm squeezed his bulk into the elevator shaft, enormous arms and legs braced against the clear curving walls, and began climbing upward. Apparently he didn’t doubt his own strength. Charles clung to his back as they began the long journey up to the 47th floor.

Erik briefly considered going up that shaft as well anyway. But it wasn’t worth the risk. Charles was committed, Sandstorm was moving quickly, and the likelihood that Sandstorm would see or hear him was too great. Were Erik beneath Sandstorm, and he caught on, the man could simply drop like the stone he was, crushing both Charles and Erik to a pulp without taking any damage himself.

Instead he made his way to the next elevator shaft over – it was closer to the remaining mutants, so he was more likely to be seen, but there was no help for it. At least the humans were raising such a clamor that he didn’t have to worry about being overheard.

Erik raised his hand slightly above the wreckage; obediently, the elevator doors slid open. He crawled toward the shaft, never glancing backward, then pushed himself over the edge.

For one moment he fell.

Then he reached out with his powers, found the metal rods along each side of the shaft, and steadied himself. For a moment he hovered there, looking into the once-elegant lobby of the Nakatomi; it was a ruin now, with the mobiles dangling akimbo, clearly on the verge of falling to the abandoned lobby floor. Erik had relied on his powers so strongly for so long that he was beginning to feel something strangely akin to exhaustion; his power wasn’t waning, but his ability to control it was.

But he had to hold on just a little while long.

Erik looked up, tethered himself to the metal and shot upward, soaring toward the top floor, toward Charles.

**

“I swear to God, there was something in the elevator shaft,” Recluse said.

Widow shot her a look. “An elevator, perhaps?”

“No. It looked like a – a piece of something.”

What it had really looked like was a person. But Recluse figured that couldn’t be right. What would a person be doing in the elevator shaft, but not in an elevator?

And if some idiot from one of the higher stories really had jumped into the shaft, wouldn’t he be falling down instead of flying upward?

It could be a mutant, she realized. Sure, Charles Xavier was the only other mutant they knew about in the building, but what if there were another? Before a couple months ago, she’d never dreamed there were any other mutants in the whole world besides her and her sister; then Sandstorm had shown up, and he’d had Delius in tow, and Recluse had been amazed to think there were even four of them. But what if mutants were all over?

Including, maybe, flying mutants?

Angry flying mutants who were going after Sandstorm right now?

It was all too much. Really, it had been too much for a long time. Yeah, hostages, whatever, but nobody had said anything about people getting killed. Sandstorm had always looked down on everyone else, which Recluse had known even before the telepath guy said it out loud. Her sister’s melodramatic ideas about their fortune and Sandstorm’s genius looked dumber and dumber all the time. And now, angry flying mutants. She didn’t see how it could get much worse, and didn’t intend to find out.

Just as Recluse decided to say something, Delius chimed in, “The emerald is flawless.”

“That’s so interesting,” Widow said, her pert bow mouth drawn up in a disapproving smirk. “Not as interesting as where it is, of course. But interesting!”

Delius acted like he was too good to respond to that. “I mention this because emeralds are difficult to cut. We will be unable to divide our prize four ways. The emerald must be sold for us to split the proceeds.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Recluse straightened up. “How do we just walk in someplace with a 200-carat emerald and sell it? I’m guessing that’s not actually easy to do. People want to know where you got those things.”

“We claim to have found it,” Widow said, enthusiastic about her fantasy. “On vacation in – in Ceylon!”

“Emeralds are more common in South America,” Delius sniffed.

They were going to have to sell it on the black market. That meant less cash. And they were going to have to trust Sandstorm to be honest about the proceeds. Recluse didn’t trust that hunk of rock as far as she could throw him, which wasn’t far, seeing as how he weighed about two tons in his stone form. The only remaining reason to be in this mess was the money – and now it looked like the money wasn’t coming.

Plus there were more cops outside than you could shake a stick at.

How was she going to get out of this mess? Hell, how was she going to get out of this building?

In her brooding, she forgot all about the shadow she’d seen in the elevator shaft.

**

 _Thunder and lightning._

Again, Charles saw the image in Sandstorm’s mind; again, he wondered what it represented to him.

It was an idle curiosity, something he thought about only because the alternative was thinking about the fact that he was dangling a few hundred feet off the ground. His only support was his own grip around the neck of a mutant who obviously cared nothing for his welfare or survival. Charles’ arms had strengthened considerably during the past five years, through operating a wheelchair and using his upper body to compensate for what his lower body could no longer do. Even so, his muscles had gone beyond aching to burning. Sweat pooled between his shoulder blades, beneath his arms, and trickled down his face. His hold on his own wrists was slippery now.

Better, by far, to think about the thunder and lightning – really, Sandstorm concentrated far more on the lightning, which was interesting –

“47th floor!” Sandstorm kicked through the elevator doors and leaped forward. Charles’ stomach dropped as for a moment they were without any support – but they landed solidly. A giant gritty fist reached up and seized him by the shirt collar; Charles found he didn’t mind being swung around like a sack of potatoes if it meant he could finally let his exhausted arms hang at his sides. “So how about you show me how telepathy works? Find that emerald for me. Do it now.”

 _Erik, where are you?_

 _Just beneath you. Waiting for Sandstorm to walk past before I come through._

 _Where shall I lead him?_

 _As close to the observation deck as possible without going on it. The most likely way for me to kill him is by dropping him. If I can hit him with some projectiles, get him to drop you and run out there, I’ll have a shot._

Charles put one hand to his temple, pretending to think. “I need – closer to the observation deck, if you will. I need to be near the source of my original vision.” Good God, he sounded like a spiritualist. Soon he’d be rapping at tables and claiming to see ectoplasm.

Sandstorm went with it, though. As the floor vibrated beneath each heavy thump of his feet, Charles listened desperately for the sounds that would mean Erik was behind them. He heard nothing.

But Erik could move silently when he needed to,

and deep within, Charles felt his determination – his raw need to get to Charles, almost as piercing as Charles’ need for rescue –

The lightning flashed again in Sandstorm’s mind, a strangely frightening image, before Sandstorm came to a stop just in front of the glass doors of the observation deck. Afternoon sun slanted through, painting them both gold. “Okay, Xavier. We’re here. Read minds like your life depends on it – ‘cause it does.”

Charles closed his eyes. _Erik?_

 _I’m right here._ In his mind came the sights before Erik right now: the hallway on the 47th floor, the shadows of Sandstorm and Charles himself.

“It’s very close,” Charles murmured out loud. Erik was within steps now. “Very, very near to us.”

Sandstorm’s voice rasped, “Where? This next room?”

“Closer,” Charles said. He opened his eyes and there was Erik, just over Sandstorm’s shoulder.

And through Sandstorm’s mind, amid the crashes of lightning, he saw Erik’s face reflected in the observation deck’s glass doors.

Charles didn’t yell, didn’t telepathically warn Erik – no time. He psyhically reached into Erik’s body and yanked him down so that he ducked Sandstorm’s massive fist just in time. But Erik had lost the advantage of surprise; now that belonged to Sandstorm.

“What’s this?” Sandstorm laughed. “Some human to the rescue?”

“No human,” Erik replied, and all along the corridor, metal doorknobs shook, elongated, rattled free – flew through the air, changing shapes into darts the size of guns –

But they froze in the air as Sandstorm swung Charles in front of him as a shield.

How useless he felt. How helpless. And yet the greatest pain was seeing the fear in Erik’s eyes.

“All I have to do is take three steps backward,” Sandstorm said. “I’ll go right through that puny glass wall. And then I can send this guy right over the side. Looks like you wouldn’t like that.”

“I wouldn’t,” Erik said. “Nor would you like what I’d do to you afterward.”

Sandstorm laughed, a sound utterly without humor. “Then we have ourselves a standoff.”

 

 

**

 _Don’t be afraid,_ Erik thought. _You know I can go over the side after you. I wouldn’t be two seconds behind._

 _I’m not afraid._ Charles’ mind, like his blue eyes, was free from doubt. _Not for myself. You must be careful, Erik. Stop worrying about me._

Which was Charles’ way of telling him to concentrate and focus on the enemy at hand.

Sandstorm regarded Erik warily. “Interesting trick with the doorknobs.”

“I have other interesting tricks. Ones you’d rather not see.”

“Seems like we’ve got mutants all over the place,” Sandstorm said.

It was Charles who answered, his voice hoarse: “The rate of mutation is increasing exponentially. The few in the generation before ours led to the greater number in our generation. Among children being born now – I think the mutations will be more vast than we can imagine.”

“You’ve degraded us all,” Erik added. “Humanity hates and fears us enough already. Now you make us out to be no more than petty criminals. Do you not understand what you are? What we’re capable of being?”

“We’re stronger,” Sandstorm said. “What else matters?”

Charles sighed. “What else indeed?”

Erik had the distinct feeling that Sandstorm was not the only one being asked that question. He’d deal with that later. “We cannot conquer humanity for the same low reasons they war with each other. We shouldn’t be in the dirt grubbing for money and valuables like thieves and crooks.”

Sandstorm laughed again. It sounded so strange when he did that, like someone was beating rocks together. “I want to put the humans down; you want to put the humans down. You just want to call it something nicer. Use bigger words out of the dictionary. Maybe your friend here thinks you’re some kind of noble crusader, but deep down, you’re just like me. And you know it.”

“If that’s ever true, Charles,” Erik said, “stop me by any means necessary.”

After a moment’s pause, Charles said very quietly, “I will remember that.”

“Am I interrupting you two?” Sandstorm said. “Let’s look at the situation. There’s something I want. The rock. 200 carats of emerald, worth millions of dollars. I’d be set for life. And you, my new friend – you want me to spare your pal here. Looks like we could trade.”

“If I knew where the emerald was, I’d give it to you gladly.” Reaching out with his powers, Erik took stock of all the metal around him; unfortunately, except for the doorknobs, there wasn’t much. With Sandstorm using Charles as a shield, those were useless.

“It’s up here.” Good God, was Sandstorm still dull enough to believe that? Not quite – even as he said it, his stony face transformed into a grimace of anger. “You two played me.”

“Put him down,” Erik said, putting all his considerable menace into every word. “Put him down now.”

“You got it,” Sandstorm said, and he threw Charles into the elevator shaft.

**

The far side of the shaft hit Charles broadside, a slam of pain followed by the far more horrible sensation of falling. He was tumbling down, nothing to grab, nothing to stop him, a clear view of the city so far beneath, and he clawed in desperation at thin air –

\--until hands seized his.

He looked up to see Erik just above him, dangling headfirst, the better to keep his hold on Charles. They slowed gradually, and the weight of his body made his shoulders ache, but finally the horrible fall stopped.

“All right,” Erik said. He was pale, his voice strained. The effort of repeatedly levitating himself against metal had clearly taken a toll. “Let me just open the doors, and – ”

 _Lightning crashing. Sandstorm’s malevolent fury. His terrible will –_

“Erik, go!” Charles shouted, even before they heard the grinding sound of Sandstorm pushing himself into the shaft and rappelling down toward them, astonishingly fast.

Instantly the doors nearest them jerked open, and Erik managed to get them both through before they tumbled down again, now onto the battered hallway of the eleventh floor. The hostages would be huddled just one floor below; exposed beams and cables hung nakedly all around them.

“He’s still coming,” Charles said. He and Erik were tangled around each other in a crumpled heap, and he was powerless to move, to free Erik to better fight. “Close the doors – you might buy us time.”

Erik reached past Charles’ shoulder, but too late. Sandstorm smashed through the elevator doors before they could close. With a resounding thud, he landed just in front of them, and though Erik was trying to tug Charles back, he obviously couldn’t get both of them far.

 _Save yourself,_ Charles thought.

 _Saving you is saving myself,_ Erik sent back, which pierced Charles through, both in its love and its futility. Because right now he couldn’t save either of them – Sandstorm had them trapped.

Once again he saw the lightning forking within Sandstorm’s mind.

Charles’ eyes went wide.

Sandstorm grinned. “I think I’m gonna kill you first, flying boy. Your friend won’t like watching – I can tell. Besides, you’re the only one who was any danger to me.”

Pushing himself up on his arms, Charles panted, “Don’t be so sure, Sandstorm. I’m the one who figured out why you can’t stop thinking about lightning.”

Sandstorm froze.

Charles yelled, “Erik, an electrical cable – a live one – hurry!”

Flinging out a hand, Erik pulled a metal-bound cable from where it dangled, still sparking. Sandstorm screamed – a terrible, wordless, inhuman sound – as the cable wrapped around him and the electrical current arced through. For a moment they could only witness the bizarre spectacle of a giant writhing and stiffening within coils of blue electricity. It was as though he were being struck by lightning, not once, but dozens, hundreds of times at once.

And lighting had a way of turning sand into glass.

The electric current shone around Sandstone – shone through him. Then he went utterly still, and Erik let the cable fall to the floor. Sandstorm’s living stone body had turned into thick, molten, cloudy glass … and when he wobbled to one side and fell to the floor, it shattered into dozens of pieces. The mind shattered with it, leaving nothing behind.

Erik sagged against Charles, who let them both flop back onto the floor. For a long moment, Charles could just hold him against his chest and pretend he’d never have to let go.

**

A couple hours later, when Recluse had time to consider what the hell had just happened, she couldn’t quite put it together and make all the pieces fit.

As she cleaned herself off in an alleyway, brushing plaster dust and debris from her brown dress, she listened to a radio news bulletin through an open window. They were saying that Sandstorm had been killed – which she believed – and that the mind-reading mutant, that Charles Xavier guy, was the one responsible. That, she didn’t believe.

According to the news, he’d used his mental talents to turn Sandstorm against them, and certainly something had turned against them. Recluse shivered as she remembered it: the metal flying through the air, spearing Delius through, and Widow screaming hysterically as Recluse herself dove for cover. She’d managed to get into a stairwell, and amid all the flying debris and chaos as the cops finally rushed in, Recluse had run out unobserved and blend into the nearby crowds. Even here, from the alley, she could see the blown-out side of the hotel, a nasty jagged cut in the Nakatomi’s shining surface. Debris lay in the street, in the alley, around her feet.

But how could Sandstorm do that, even if he did have Xavier controlling his brain? He couldn’t control metal; that blowhard told them everything else he could do, so he would have gone on and on about that, too. Nor had he shown any sign of it during their initial attack. Only his sandstorm winds had blown out the side of the building.

So what the hell had happened?

The one part of the news reports Recluse did believe was that Widow was the one member of their group who had been arrested. Apparently the cops found her sitting in the lobby with one of those fancy-shmancy mobiles wrapped around her so she couldn’t get away.

Which would have been kind of gratifying, really, if her sister hadn’t also been her only way home.

Recluse’s bank account was empty, and besides, their hotel was probably overrun with police right now, so she couldn’t get to her checkbook or her charge card even if they were worth anything. The apartment back in Philly had a lease in Widow’s name, and probably cops were headed there too. She’d quit her job at Woolworth’s because she’d thought, after this, she’d be on Easy Street. No great loss there, but it meant she was busted.

 _Fuck all,_ she thought, and kicked at the debris closest to her on the ground – some squat little statue, Aztec or something.

And it glinted green.

Slowly Recluse sank to her knees and took the statue in her hand. Where the stone was chipped away, she could see that the core was one large green stone.

Delius’ perfect emerald – all hers.

“I knew I liked California,” she muttered, before her face split in a grin.

**

Erik paced the length of his hotel room, wondering whether he should –

\--no. He knew he shouldn’t, just as he knew he would. But he didn’t yet know whether this was the moment.

Charles had pleaded with him to take credit for his role in rescuing the human scientists. “You’re a hero, Erik,” he’d said, the smudges of soot on his face only making his eyes seem brighter blue. “You should be recognized for that. Every mutant the world sees as a hero is good for all mutants, everywhere – particularly after what Sandstorm did.”

But Erik didn’t want to be paraded about as humanity’s noble servant. Besides – Charles was the one willing to be known as the public face of mutantkind, the one brave and foolish enough to accept those slings and arrows. Let him have the praise, too. It was true enough: But for Charles, Erik would simply have left the scientists to Sandstorm’s worst devices.

So he listened on the radio as the scientists talked of how Charles had been endangered, how apparently he had finally turned Sandstorm against his own team, and how all but six of the scientists had walked out alive thanks to Charles’ efforts. In the aftermath, Erik had again passed for just another attendee of the Stanford conference, one willing to help Charles get to his new hotel and to arrange for a nurse to look him over.

That had been a few hours ago, hours Erik had spent listening to the news, taking a very long shower, and sending a terse message to the Brotherhood that he was alive and well. He was not ready to hear Raven’s inevitable questions about his reunion with Charles, nor to ask himself how he would answer her.

But finally, as dark drew on, Erik knew he was ready to go to Charles again.

He pulled the hotel robe over his pajama pants and bare chest and walked down the corridor; Charles’ room was at the very end of the hallway. Quickly he rapped, knowing Charles would sense who it was immediately.

“Come in,” Charles called, once again using his voice instead of his mind. How considerate he was. How careful. As much as Erik knew he should be grateful for that, he hated it – the evidence of the distance remaining between them, despite everything.

But maybe that distance could be lessened – just enough.

Erik undid the locks and went inside, making sure to seal the door shut behind him. Charles was pushing himself up from the place where he’d already been tucked into bed, his undershirt as rumpled as his thinning hair. “You look all right,” Erik said.

“I am. The nurse checked me out, helped me with a bath. She says I’ll see some bruising, but nothing worse.” Charles smiled ruefully. “Thanks to you.”

He shrugged as he came to the bedside, sat next to Charles. “You’re the hero of the day. As you should be.”

“Starting that argument again wouldn’t get me far, would it?” Charles leaned back against the headboard, studying Erik’s face as if he thought he might never see it again. It was painful to realize Charles might not be wrong about that.

All the more reason to be here.

“When will you go?” Charles asked quietly.

“Tomorrow morning.”

“And you won’t tell me where.”

“No. And you won’t force it from me.”

“No.” Charles sighed. “But – Erik, I’m glad we have this to remember.”

“We can have more than this to remember.”

Charles actually, truly, didn’t get it. My God, he was working so hard to stay out of Erik’s head that he’d made himself obtuse.

So Erik leaned forward and gently, so gently, brushed his lips against Charles’. Charles breathed out, short and sharp, almost as if he’d been struck – but he didn’t move away. So Erik kissed his cheek, the corner of his jaw, the side of his throat.

Against the skin of Charles’ neck, Erik whispered, “We deserve a better goodbye this time. Don’t you think?”

“Erik.” Charles braced his hands against Erik’s chest and pushed him back – not hard, but hard enough. “What are you doing?”

“Seducing you. Or trying to. Am I that out of practice?”

His small joke fell flat. “It’s a bad idea.”

“I realize that. I expect to feel like hell tomorrow morning. You will too. And you don’t care about that any more than I do.”

Charles shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

“No. Just inadvisable. It doesn’t matter.”

“If it were that simple – but, Erik –”

Erik covered one of Charles’ hands against his chest with his own. “Are you still so angry with me? Do you want me to beg?” He would beg. He would hate it and mean it and love it. At this moment, Erik thought he would do anything just to be with Charles one more time.

“No. Erik – it’s not that.” Charles brought Erik’s palm to his face and kissed it, then held it to the side of his face as he struggled for words. Finally he said, “I haven’t.”

“Haven’t what?”

“I haven’t had sex since – you and me. Since before I was paralyzed.”

It took a few moments for Erik to understand what he’d just heard, much less believe it. “Not since – Charles – _five years_?”

Charles shook his head.

Good God, this couldn’t be true. Charles Xavier, whose sex drive used to astonish Erik, who wasn’t exactly lacking in that area himself – Charles, who had on a single snowbound weekend in Chicago taken Erik eight times in twenty-four hours, hadn’t made love once in the past five years? The deprivation of it, the profound sense of loss, lanced Erik to the core.

He understood without being told that very little of this had to do with his own absence. Charles would have suffered just as much as he had after their parting, but that would no more have stopped him from taking another lover than it had stopped Erik.

This was about his paralysis. About what Charles felt he could no longer do.

“I miss it.” Charles confessed, his voice breaking; the sound of that pierced Erik through. “Sometimes I miss it so much it hurts.”

“You must have tried, at least.”

“With myself, certainly. I’d hardly put someone else through the effort, though. Sometimes I can feel my own hand around my cock reasonably well. I can even get a hard-on. But – even when I come, it’s usually so – far away.” Charles breathed out heavily; Erik could see how hard he was fighting to remain calm, in control.

Erik brushed his hands through Charles’ hair. “Maybe you’ve just needed someone to try along with you.”

Charles shook his head. “Erik. That you even want to – you can’t know what it means to me. I’ve missed you so – more than – Christ. You know how much. But you remember how we were together before. That’s what you’re missing, what you want to get back. And we can’t get that back. Not ever.” His eyes met Erik’s, steady, determined to be firm. “I can’t give you what you really want, Erik. There are some things that can’t be replaced.”

No one spoke for another few moments. Erik weighed what Charles had said. Slowly he leaned closer as he framed Charles’ face with his hands. “The one thing I can’t replace is you.”

“ _Erik._ ” Charles closed his eyes tightly.

Almost desperate now, Erik continued, “Whatever I can have with you tonight – whatever that is – that’s what I want.”

Then he kissed Charles again – his last plea, wordless and almost hopeless. And in the first instant, it seemed to Erik that Charles would pull away, shake his head no once more, and there would be nothing for Erik to decently do but get up and walk out.

But Charles’ mouth softened into the kiss – giving in to it – even as his arms slid around Erik. Their next kiss was open-mouthed and hungry, and Erik could feel Charles’ surrender in every inch of his body. For a few long moments, he could hardly think, could do nothing but keep kissing Charles.

When finally they parted for breath, Charles stroked Erik’s back, his arms, the line along the center of his chest. “I don’t know how we’ll – oh, damn. At least I can take care of you.” He went for the tie of Erik’s robe, untangling it impatiently, then pushed the robe from his shoulders. “Just making you come would be enough for me.”

It would not be enough for Erik. Charles deserved more. But he had to admit – he wasn’t at all sure how to work with Charles’ condition, and it seemed as if Charles himself could provide little guidance.

But damn it, they would figure something out.

Already his body ached for Charles’ touch, yearning for what was to come. But even as Erik went to pull off Charles’ T-shirt, he felt Charles go tense.

“I’m not – my body’s different now.” From Charles’ mind, Erik received his idea of himself: legs shriveled almost to bone, nothing like what they had been, nothing anyone could ever find attractive.

In that first moment of shock, the vision gave Erik pause, but he hadn’t fallen in love with Charles’ legs. “Show me.”

Charles lifted his arms so Erik could pull away the T-shirt, then pushed himself down until he lay on the bed. Erik tugged back the covers and slid Charles’ boxers down, revealing him completely. Yes, his body had changed – but not so horribly as Charles feared. While his legs were far thinner, lacking muscle tone, they weren’t wasted ruins, either. And his chest and arms were far better developed than they had been five years before; his abdominal muscles were now more defined than Erik’s own.

He traced the indentation of those muscles with two of his fingers; Charles sucked in a breath at the touch. “This isn’t what you imagine,” Erik murmured. “You’re different, yes. But still beautiful.”

Either Charles believed him or didn’t care any longer. “Get into bed.”

Erik divested himself of the pajama pants and tossed them onto the floor with Charles’ boxers, then did as Charles demanded. The hotel room was cool, so he pulled the blankets up over them, covered Charles with his own body. Just the feel of their naked embrace after so long was enough to make Erik shudder. He’d wanted this for so long – the heat of Charles’ tongue in his mouth, his cock hard against Charles’ thigh, Charles’ hands sweeping down his back to hold him close. Better yet was Charles’ mind enfolding him, sharing his equal exhilaration that they could again touch, that for tonight at least nothing was between them.

“I missed you,” Charles murmured between wet kisses. Already his lips were swollen; it was indecent, how much Erik had missed Charles’ mouth. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“And I missed you.” Kissing his way down Charles’ chest, he murmured, “You said you have some feeling beneath the injury?”

“Some – but – Erik, there’s no point – ”

“Indulge me.” Erik burrowed beneath the covers. With one thumb, he traced along the bottom of Charles’ left foot. “Anything?”

The answer came through Charles’ mind – a flicker of sensation just at the arch. So Erik massaged him there, rubbing deeply, and was rewarded with a surge of pleasure … far greater than it ought to have been. Maybe this wasn’t going to bring Charles off, but it was still enjoyable for him. Still sensual.

Charles had been neglected far too long, allowed to forget the simpler satisfactions of touch. Did anyone ever hold him? Put their hands on his shoulders? Massage his hands? Erik suspected not. Charles had been deprived of more than sex; he was touch-starved in every way.

Anywhere Charles could still feel had become a kind of erogenous zone – a shift Erik meant to take advantage of.

So he set out to find every place Charles could feel along his legs at the moment: a little patch of skin along the right ankle bone, a stripe on this calf, behind the bend of another knee. He devoted himself to each spot, working his way up to Charles’ half-hard cock.

“What about here? Here?”

“Mmm – that’s – that’s almost – _oh_.”

Maybe one square inch, right along the ridge: Erik dedicated himself to licking, rubbing, sucking, doing anything that might force Charles to make that sound again. He could feel Charles’ pleasure rippling along and around him, arousal sharp enough to harden his own erection –

\--but not enough to bring Charles over.

“It’s all right,” Charles murmured, between heavy breaths. “It’s enough just to feel – to feel that good – to know it’s you.” But even as Erik lapped at that place again, one of Charles’ hands curved around his face, pulling him away. “Let me take a turn.”

Erik crawled up, angling himself as Charles curled his torso toward him, and then Charles’ mouth closed over his cock. His tongue curled around the head, jolting Erik from his cock to his brain. Even as he reeled, Charles started to suck, hard and fast. Almost instantly Erik was groaning, hanging onto control by a thread. He’d remembered Charles was insanely good at this, not much chance he could ever forget it, but memory wasn’t the same as the reality of Charles’ warm mouth, the swirling motion at just the right tempo. Charles’ hands were braced against Erik’s pelvic bones; somehow he even knew how to hold Erik in place. And now Charles was sucking him even harder, and Erik had to fight the urge to pull Charles’ hair or swear – to lose it completely –

He managed to say, “Feel this – feel it with me.”

Charles hesitated – motion slowing, damn it all to hell. Then the words echoed in Erik’s mind: _Are you sure?_

Feeling each other’s sensations in the most real way – not just pleasure or emotion, but as if the one touching were the one touched – it was more intimate than anything else. Erik had rarely offered even when they were together, so in love they foolishly thought it could last forever.

But there was no time to hesitate now. Charles needed this. Erik wanted to give it to him, no matter the cost. “Yes.”

Then he felt Charles’ mind – not around his, but in his, piercing him to the core, and then Charles mouth was working him again and Erik began to rock into his lips, urging every movement on –

\--and Charles pulled back.

“What the – ” It was all Erik could do not to swear.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, my friend. That was just too – it didn’t work.” Charles breathed out in frustration, and Erik felt the contact between their minds lessening. “Doing one thing and feeling something so different – for me it was – it wasn’t – no. But here. Come here. Let me take care of you.”

Come to think of it, that mingling of the minds had always been most enjoyable when they were doing the same thing –

“Wait.” Erik readjusted himself to lie along Charles, kissed his open mouth, then reached to the bedside where someone, apparently the nurse, had left some lotion. “Try again now,” he murmured as he slicked his hand, then took his cock and Charles’ in one fist.

He moved for them both, thrust for them both. Charles’ cock warm against his – harder now, nearly as hard as his own – and Charles’ mind in his mind, reeling in total, mutual pleasure.

“Oh, God.” Charles pressed a sloppy kiss against Erik’s shoulder. Already he was panting; already his erection was as strong and thick as it had ever been. “Erik – what is this? It’s like – like nothing’s different – oh, Erik, faster.”

Erik pumped faster. Gripped them harder. Looked down to see them both blood dark in his slick, gleaming fist, more aroused than ever to see their cocks in his hand.

Charles’ mind seemed to burst within his, sending emotion and sensation bleeding into every fold of Erik’s mind, mingling them together. Erik somehow held onto the moment, willing Charles’ mind to take it all in: slippery fingers squeezing them together, his fist pumping them faster and faster, the pulse-point of their heads pressed together then pushing out then pressing in again –

They cried out at the same time, in the same breath, and Erik’s climax rocked him so deeply that it took him a moment to realize Charles wasn’t just feeling it with him but was coming too, hot and sticky across their bellies. He loved the sight of it, the feel of it. He wanted to lick Charles clean, but that would mean moving away from his face for too long.

So his fingers were messy as he covered Charles’ body for yet another kiss, took Charles’ face in his hand to hold him there.

Panting, Charles managed to get out, “That was – oh, God, you know what that was. But what it means to me – Erik – “

“Shhh.” Erik kissed him again, long and wet.

For a while after they simply lay there, tangled up in each other; Erik didn’t fall asleep right away, but went into that deep still place that sometimes followed sex, where he could not have found words or thoughts. He just breathed in the scent of Charles’ skin, relished every place they touched and wished he never had to move again.

**

Charles drowsed in the uneasy way of someone no longer in the habit of having anyone else in his bed. Towed down by exhaustion, he would drift into strange dreams that were half memory – Sandstorm’s enormous fist clenching his jacket, the crowd of scientists around him, or Erik standing in the hallway of the Nakatomi with metal hovering all around him. Then somehow he would realize he was awake, that he had been awake for a while without knowing it, and that Erik was sprawled by his side.

Just the sight of him, or the feel of his arm stretched across Charles’ chest, was enough to awaken the wonder all over again, as if it were new: _Erik’s here, I can still make love, we still love each other._

Harsh reality would threaten to intrude then – but tired as he was, sleep always reclaimed him first.

Finally, in the dead of night, Charles stirred into wakefulness, and this time he knew it would last for a while. For many minutes he was content to simply watch Erik; the same moonlight that had seemed to taunt him the night before now painted his lover’s naked body. There were new scars on Erik’s back; new lines on his brow, but he had somehow become even more beautiful during their years apart.

But then, Erik would never look anything less than beautiful to Charles. He had always known that.

Able to restrain himself no longer, Charles risked one gentle brush against Erik’s hair; instantly Erik opened his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Charles murmured. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’m glad you did.” Erik curled in closer to Charles so that his head was pillowed on Charles’ shoulder. Nobody who had faced down the fearsome Magneto in battle would ever believe he was a snuggler; Charles had to stifle a smile. “More time for us.”

And that reminded Charles that they would have to part soon, too soon –

\--but not yet.

“Come here.” Charles guided Erik’s face up to his own; their kiss was slow and lazy, tasting of sleep. He’d forgotten that taste, or the scent of sex and sweat on his skin, or the way Erik’s stubble rasped against his. Every little detail was coming back to him.

Some of their psychic link remained, or Erik was unusually perceptive, because when their lips parted, Erik said, “It’s been too long, For you.”

“Had been,” Charles agreed, making little circles with his thumb against Erik’s unshaven cheek. “Far too long.”

“Make me a promise.” Erik hesitated, and his expression darkened. Charles braced himself – this was obviously going to be painful – and yet he was startled when Erik said, “Swear to me that you’ll take another lover.”

Charles could hardly reply. He just stared.

Speaking quickly, Erik went on, “I don’t want to know who. I don’t ever want any details. Just the thought of someone else touching you – I can hardly bear it. But you shouldn’t be alone. Promise me you’ll find someone. You deserve that.”

“Erik.”

“Promise me. Promise me you won’t be alone.”

Charles barely managed to get the words out: “I promise.”

Neither of them could speak after that, not right away. Erik rested his head on Charles’ shoulder again, and Charles stroked his back.

Finally Charles whispered, “I want to say the most foolish things.”

“If you won’t say it, I will.” Erik brushed his lips against Charles’ collarbone. “I love you.”

“Oh, Erik. I didn’t mean that. It could never be foolish for me to say how much I love you too.” Charles kissed his hairline, his forehead. “I meant – I want to beg you to come back to the mansion with me. Never to leave again.”

Erik shut his eyes tightly even as he confessed, “I want to ask you to come with me to the Brotherhood.”

Neither of them responded to the other’s plea; refusing would have been as horrible as hearing the refusal. They could be as close as this, naked bodies intertwined, and still be so infinitely far apart.

But – no. Not infinitely. “The space between us isn’t too far to bridge,” Charles said. “Not always. We learned that today.”

“Yes.”

Another idea came to Charles then. It was – shocking and idiotic and the only thing he wanted, at least the only thing he wanted that he could ever have. But Erik would never agree to it. That was impossible.

 _You would have sworn this was impossible as late as yesterday morning,_ Charles reminded himself, looking down at Erik naked alongside him. _Stop giving up. Fight for what you want._

“I don’t want another lover,” Charles said. “I want you.”

Erik propped up on one elbow, as if to protest, but Charles put his hand over Erik’s mouth. If he didn’t get this out all at once, he’d never get it out at all.

So he said, “You’ll never come back to the mansion. I’ll never join the Brotherhood. So we’ll never get back what we had before. I hate that, but it’s a fact, and we’ve both faced it. But this – Erik, we could have this. Every once in a while, if we came together … just for a weekend, or even a night – we could make it work.”

The sudden sharp yearning inside Erik was almost as hard for Charles to sense as the despair that accompanied it. “You’re supposed to turn me in if you ever see me again.”

“Which I haven’t done, and wouldn’t do. Just like you’d never reveal the mansion’s whereabouts to the rest of the Brotherhood.” Charles had never specifically known this, but it stood to reason; otherwise, they’d have had uninvited guests a long time ago. “You would leave your helmet behind. I would respect the sanctity of your mind as you chose. We won’t argue politics – ”

Erik gave him a look.

“We’ll try not to argue politics, then. We’ll talk about everything else under the sun. We’ll play chess. We’ll make love.” Charles felt so exposed, so vulnerable, pleading for this – and yet he also felt stronger than ever had when trying to deny his feelings. The truth really was the only security he needed. “Forget trying to change each other. Forget trying to convert each other. We’ll just be together when we can steal the time and – and take what comes. If we fail, we fail. But it’s worth a chance. Promise me, Erik. Promise me I won’t be alone.”

For a long moment, Erik didn’t answer, and Charles felt his heart sink. His own emotions were too overwhelming for him to read Erik’s.

“You’re the optimist,” Erik finally said. “Your head’s still in the clouds. You want the impossible.”

Disappointment crashed down on Charles. “You won’t.”

“I will, damn you. I don’t know how or when, but – I’ll come to you. I can’t let you go.”

Then Erik kissed him, fierce and possessive; his fingers dug into the flesh of Charles’ shoulder so much that it almost hurt. Charles didn’t care. He could only kiss Erik back.

Could this last forever? Could it last long at all? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they could try.

Erik’s teeth raked along Charles’ throat. “I’m yours,” he whispered, “Still yours.”

Charles would have sworn the same if Erik’s lips hadn’t closed over his earlobe.

His earlobes had always been sensitive; Erik had often sucked at them when they were kissing, even teased Charles about how much he liked it.

But that had been before the injury. Since then, Charles had noticed that some other sensations had become stronger for him – an odd kind of compensation for all that lost feeling. And this – this was the strongest of all.

It jolted through him, making his mouth hang open and his pulse speed up. Charles clasped Erik closer to him and managed to choke out, “Keep doing that.”

Erik obliged. He slung one leg over Charles’ body, covered him with his full weight. He sucked hard, tongue teasing the soft flesh there, and Charles felt an answering rush so intense that it was almost like sex.

No. It was sex.

Then Erik’s body tensed, as if he had just realized precisely how good this was for Charles. He started moving against him, pressing them together, back and forth. The motion of his hips reminded Charles deliciously of how it had felt when Erik fucked him. Erik had to be hard now – and to judge by the pounding of his heart and the sounds coming from his own throat, Charles was too.

He couldn’t feel it, exactly, but his body still knew.

A cry escaped him as Erik’s teeth nipped at him, then went back to the quick rhythmic sucking that was bringing him to the edge. Charles felt himself chasing it and had to let go – had to stop chasing it so it could catch him –

It caught him. His skin went hot, the world went white and Charles couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only let it take him over.

As he groaned and sank back into the bed, Erik took the weight of his upper body onto his hands. Now Charles could see his own come streaking their bellies and chests; he could see Erik’s still-rigid cock pressed tight between them, just the head visible on each thrust. Charles grabbed him by the hips, urging him to pump hard – _that’s it, that’s it, I won’t break –_

Erik shouted out as he finished, going still and tense above Charles; a bead of sweat dripped from his forehead onto Charles’ shoulder. Then he sucked in a breath, blinked hard and met Charles’ eyes.

And Charles started laughing, his mouth wide open in wonder and joy. “What the hell was that?”

Despite how hard he was breathing, Erik managed to grin back. “Your _ears_?”

Charles pulled Erik down to him for another kiss, which he kept laughing into. “My ears,” he murmured. “Who would have thought?”

“That was incredible. “ A finger toyed with Charles’ other earlobe.

“Obviously we have a lot to learn together.”

Pulling back slightly, Erik met his eyes. Their smiles faded. Although Charles remained resolute, he could tell Erik was less sure. “It won’t be easy, this plan of yours.”

“No. For either of us. But when was it ever?”

That, strangely enough, seemed to convince Erik more than anything else would have done. “All right.”

“You must have been planning on leaving before morning.” Charles did not need his telepathy to tell him that. Regardless of whether their parting was permanent or temporary, brief or enduring, a clean break would hurt less. “But stay. Until dawn, maybe. I want you close for as long as I can have you.”

Which wasn’t that long – another couple of hours – but Erik gave in, curling next to Charles in wordless acquiescence.

“Thank you,” Charles murmured into Erik’s hair. “I know it makes the morning harder. I guess we’ve just made everything harder.”

Erik’s hand tightened around Charles’ wrist. “You’re worth the scars.”

 **END**


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